


Across the Rubicon of Regrets

by Moebius



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, Post canon, some implied UST, working on grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moebius/pseuds/Moebius
Summary: Katrina had a Phillipa Georgiou in her life once, and she hesitated. Regrets can teach us how to be better with second chances, even if we pretend otherwise.





	Across the Rubicon of Regrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saturnofthemoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnofthemoon/gifts).



> I almost called this "She Who Hesitates" before I remembered one of my favorite Voyager fanfics from Way Back When. 
> 
> A thank you to pixiedane, who read and encouraged me (and always encourages me!).

The scotch burns a smoky fire down her throat and settles in her stomach. She finishes in a single gulp, then sets it down. The heavy glass resounds against the transparent aluminum of her coffee table. She lets out a breath and stands, looking towards the display on her desk. “What are you doing, Phillipa?”

Katrina Cornwell brushes her fingers across the medals and insignia on her chest. Displayed on her viewscreen is the image of Phillipa Georgiou - but not _her_ Phillipa Georgiou - staring severely off into the distance. Not for the first time, Kat plays the events of the last few weeks in her mind. The return of the _Discovery_ , thinking she found Gabriel only to lose him all over again to the truth, and the decisions she made to bring an end to the war that had been decimating the Federation for nearly a year.

Kat doesn’t believe in giving regret the power to control you, but she’s ended each long day of debriefs and committee meetings with scotch and the shadows of her own thoughts. The commendation ceremony of the _Discovery_ crew had been a welcome relief, a day in the light, before she retreated back to the cold darkness of second guesses, of _what ifs_ and, more lately, _wheres_?

 _Where are you_?

Her display beeps, catching her attention. Another ping. She checks the chronograph in the corner. The ping occurred a few minutes ago, at 0110 hours local time, just like last night. And the night before. Exhaling through her nose, Kat sits and unlocks the display with her biometrics. “Computer, display notification.”

The computer shows her. An anomalous reading along the border of the Klingon Empire, but on the Starfleet side. The blip has been moving steadily towards Vulcan. Kat knows she should ignore it, but there’s a tingling feeling at the base of her skull that won’t let go. “Extrapolate destination based on recorded information for the previous two weeks.”

After a moment, the computer displays a few sets of coordinates, along with the words: _More Data Input Suggested_. Kat twists her lips into a smile. “Request taken under advisement.”

She charters herself a ship the next day. Even though she knows it’s probably a bad idea, Kat wants to find the answer to her question.

_Where are you… Phillipa?_

\--

Kat finds her in a bar, on the outskirts of a tiny colony on a barely-colonized planet on the edge of the Klingon-Romulan neutral zone. She’s leaning against the counter, facing the door as if she had been waiting this whole time. As Kat approaches her, she raises her arms to the sky in a mock gesture of surrender.

“How did you know it was me?” The last time Kat saw her, she was wearing a Starfleet uniform. Now she’s clad in black leather, with a modified phaser slung low on her hip and an anachronistic sword strapped across her back. It’s easier to remember that she’s not Kat’s Phillipa Georgiou when she looks like this. Mostly.

“You seem to think you’re clever. Every night at 0110 hours at Starfleet command, for 49 seconds.” She had been debriefed on the history of this Phillipa’s universe, of her title of Imperator, and of her culture’s obsession with the Romans. It hadn’t taken too long to figure it out. Only a couple of weeks.

“I’m so pleased you understood.” When Kat says nothing, Georgiou smiles. “You’re out of uniform."

Now, Kat shrugs. “I thought you were heading towards Vulcan.” It’s a simple tactic, to change the subject, and she knows Phillipa will see right through it. So she’s surprised when the other woman, the ex- _Emperor_ , plays along.

“Vulcan? Why would I go there?” Phillipa sneers, but there’s a sparkle in her eyes. “Is anything more boring than a Vulcan? No, I was going to check out the real power players.”

Kat raises an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She steps closer to Kat and the Admiral involuntarily straightens. “Now now, _Admiral_ , I made a deal and I plan to keep to the deal.”

“Then why did you ping me every night?”

“To see if you were paying attention, of course. Do you know what you were in my universe?”

This isn’t the first time Phillipa has asked her the question, but Kat ignored it then, in the quarters of the dead captain whose counterpart had been prowling the room like a caged lion. Kat had commandeered the quarters for herself, but she never slept in there. It didn’t seem right. Instead, she used it as a sanctuary and a quiet, dark place to hide with her thoughts and fears.  She hadn’t answered the question that night, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to ignore it now. All the reasons went away when Kat left Earth. She knew what she’d find here, at the end of her trip. “No. What was I?”

“Dead.” The word is weighed down with anger and regret. The next part, Phillipa tells her with burning eyes, through a clenched jaw. “Gabriel Lorca killed you to get to me. It didn’t work, so he _took_ Michael.”

Burnham had explained enough of what had happened in the other universe that little of this surprises Kat. But the implications of the words - _to get to me_ \- settle on her shoulders and in her stomach, like the anticipation of a storm. She lifts her jaw. “I’m not dead in this one.”

“You certainly aren’t.”

Kat steps forward and kisses her. It was something she had wanted to do with _her_ Phillipa for a long time. Something had stopped her. Propriety had stopped her. Their careers had stopped her. Gabriel had stopped her. Not explicitly, but just by existing. The three of them were complicated and unspoken, and no single one of them had talked about whatever it was and now she, Katrina Cornwell, was the single one left alive.

“I am clever,” Phillipa says, smirking, as they break apart. A patron of the bar coughs a little too loudly. “See? You wanted something. I’m giving it to you.”

This seems too obvious to Kat. It would be far too simple if this Emperor of a hundred worlds, or whatever she calls herself, broadcasts this persona of arrogance that hides a soft and hurt woman behind it. Kat almost laughs. She wonders if they have Freud or Jung or any other psychologist at all in the universe where this Phillipa comes from. She knows the right decision here is to turn and walk away, and to ignore the warmth on her lips and the pressure in her chest that’s telling her what she really wants. Instead, she murmurs: “I think I’m giving you something you want, too.”

Phillipa sighs and rolls her eyes, either annoyed at her weakness or that Kat figured it out… or both. “Fine. My Katrina is dead. Your Phillipa is dead. When we were alive together, I took what I needed from her and her from me, and it was _glorious_. What did you do when you were alive with yours?”

“Nothing,” Kat responds, mad at herself for how quick the word escaped her lips. “I never sa-”

She’s cut off by another kiss, this time rougher. “I have a room with a bed and a bottle of scotch, Katrina. Would you like to see either one of those things?”

The correct answer is no. But Kat has spent the last year losing, taking to the shadows each night to lick her wounds and ready herself for the next round. She realizes in that moment that she’s here because she wants something better to do in the darkness. “How about both?”

Phillipa grins in a way that is so incredibly unlike the Phillipa who Kat knows - knew -  that she almost changes her mind. But the smile in the lines at her eyes is the most familiar thing Kat has seen in a long time, and her heart constricts with longing. She tells herself she won’t let _this_ Phillipa see her cry.

She mostly keeps her promise. And she _does_ find something better, much better, to do in the darkness.

  



End file.
